Calendar

SPIE Photonics West 2008
Booth 1501
Jan. 19-24, 2008
San Jose, CA
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Strategies In Light
Feb. 11-13, 2008
San Jose, CA
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Introduction to Illumination Design Using LightTools
Feb. 25-27, 2008
Pasadena, California
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Advanced Topics in LightTools:  Optimization, COM/API, and Photorealistic Rendering
Feb. 28-29, 2008
Pasadena, California
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Latest LightTools Service Release is Available for Download

We are pleased to announce that the latest LightTools Service Release, version 6.0 SR2, is now available for download.  This Service Release addresses several customer reported issues in LightTools 6.0 including:

• Resolves a bug in which the Save with Ray Data option (File menu) would not restore luminance data or charts.
  
  
• Resolves a bug in which the ray aggregate mean free path in phosphors with inert particles was not being calculated correctly.
  
  
• Resolves multiple issues that caused cemented objects to be incorrectly oriented.
  
  
• Resolves an issue that caused copied, immersed objects with 3D textures to crash under certain conditions.
  
  
• Resolves an issue in which ray intersections were not being handled correctly for cemented elements under certain conditions.
  
  
• Resolves an issue in which rays that struck a polarizing element exactly normal to the surface were not always maintaining proper polarization orientation after leaving the polarizer.
  
  
• Resolves a bug that could cause LightTools to exit abnormally when the number of control points on a Spline Patch surface was increased.
  
  
• Resolves a bug in which immersed sheet objects were not always ray traced correctly.
  
  
• Resolves an issue in which the ray data export capability was not properly exporting rays on concave lens surfaces.
  
  
• Resolves a crashing bug that occurred when restoring revolution primitives with 3D textures attached.
  
  
• Resolves a limitation issue for the maximum Correlated Color Temperature (CCT). The limit has been increased from 10,000 K to 100,000 K.

Click here to download the LightTools 6.0 SR2 Service Release.  Please note that this Service Release is a patch which must be applied to LightTools version 6.0 or 6.0 SR1.  More details and instructions are included on the download page.

Updated version of Backlight Pattern Optimization (BPO) Utility

An updated version of the LightTools Backlight Pattern Optimization (BPO) Utility is available for download from ORA's Customer Area of the Web (www.oraservice.com), under LightTools Support > Utility and Macro Downloads.  The BPO utility is an enhancement to the LightTools Optimization Module that allows users to optimize the extraction pattern (feature size and placement) for backlit displays. This updated version includes the following enhancements made to the previous version of the BPO utility:

• Enhancements made to the smoothing options that provide a significant improvement for key pad applications.
  
  
• Fixes a bug in the "None" smoothing option, which did not always work properly.
  
  
• Fixes a bug when dither spacing is not equal to 0 that could allow pattern textures to overlap.
  
  
• Fixes a bug where density smoothing type was not saved and restored with the model.
  
  
• Increased error checking to prevent gaps along the edges of receiver bins.
  
  
• Improved error handling for clearing COM errors should they occur during BPO operation.
  
  
• Fixes a bug where changing receiver mesh dimensions could invalidate the merit function target.